Dan Savage, partner, get marriage license

One of the first same-sex couples to get a marriage license Thursday in King County was Dan Savage and Terry Miller, who started the It Gets Better Project to help prevent suicide along LGBT youth.

“It’s really a remarkable journey we’ve been on and such a remarkable sea change,” said Savage, who’s also known for his sex-advice column in Seattle’s alternative newspaper The Stranger and other works. “And not just for gay people, but straight people have changed, too. It’s gotten better for us because straight people have gotten better about us.”

The first marriage license in King County was issued at 12:01 a.m., and by 3:30 a.m. 212 had been issued, breaking the single-day record. Typically the county issues between 75 and 100 marriage licenses per day, but by 6:45 a.m. Thursday the count surpassed 300.

The Legislature passed the same-sex marriage law earlier this year, then voters approved it in November. Washington law requires three days between getting a license and getting married. So there will likely be mass weddings throughout Seattle on Sunday.

Savage, who married Miller in Canada in 2005, said he thought the most remarkable recent marriage equality moment came in the weeks after the election as more election results were counted.

“And it turned out that marriage equality passed by a wider margin here in Washington State than the other three states where there was a marriage vote,” Savage said. “That was really thrilling and affirming, and we’ve worked really hard to bring Washington State around.”